Archival Collection

The Riverside Metropolitan Museum’s Archival Collection is among the most comprehensive of any in the City. The history, growth, and development of Riverside and surrounding areas from before its founding up to the present are contained within the photographs, documents, manuscripts, and ephemera.

There are approximately 150 discrete collections of materials and thousands of items unassociated with collections. Among the dozens of outstanding collections are:

The Mission Inn/Frank Miller Hutchings Collection (36 linear feet) documents the story of the Miller family and their fabulous Mission Inn hotel, a National Historic Landmark.

The Harada Family Archival Collection (approximately 70 linear feet) tells the 100 year saga of an immigrant Japanese family’s quest for civil rights in Twentieth Century America. The Harada’s home is one of two National Historic Landmarks in Riverside.

The Riverside Metropolitan Museum Photograph Collection is probably the most expansive visual record of the City and contains approximately 30,000 images chronicling the City’s history from the 1860s to the present.

The Rin Tin Tin/Lee Duncan Collection tells the story of one of early Hollywood’s iconic stars—Rin Tin Tin—and three generations of his descendants who followed in his pawprints through photographs, movie posters, documents, letters, and television scripts.

The S. W. Evans Archival Collection is the single largest archival collection at approximately 100 linear feet. It chronicles the personal, business, and political activities of one of Riverside’s founding families from the 1870s through the 1950s.

The Riverside Metropolitan Museum’s Archives are open to the public by appointment. For more information, please call 951-826-5273.

Throughout the year the Museum offers free curriculum-based school programs focusing on local natural history, Native American culture, and Riverside history.

All programs are led by professional Museum educators and trained docents and are designed to meet California state learning standards. Programs are also available for homeschool groups visiting the Museum.